Quick-serve and fast-casual restaurants can often get put together when it comes to looking at the net lease market. However, a new Placer.ai analysis suggests the two categories are more suited for an old-fashioned compare-and-contrast treatment, like learning to write an essay in grade school.

First, some comparisons. Visits don't necessarily directly correlate to financials. QSRs have increased their prices, even with specials that, according to Placer.ai, closed the price gap with fast-casual. That comes even as the latter has pushed on innovations like drive-in windows, improved mobile ordering and payment, and greater reliance on data analytics to better compete with the former by improving convenience.

The top-line contrast is that the fast-casual category saw 3.2% year-over-year visitor growth in the first half of 2024 compared to 0.4% for QSR. The focus on visitor growth is an outgrowth of how Pacer.ai uses cell phone data to analyze foot traffic down to a property level.